DENVER -- The Colorado Rockies are going to the World Series.
That's neither a joke nor a misprint. Because after sweeping aside the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Championship Series on Monday night, the once-hapless Rockies woke up this morning smelling of champagne as the last NL team standing.
For 15 years they've barely qualified as an afterthought, shoveling aside snow to play games that ended in football scores in their mile-high ballpark, finishing better than third in their five-team division only twice.
And now they're National League champions.
In the last decade they've finished with a winning record only twice, losing more than 90 games two times in the last four seasons.
But now they're four wins away from a World Series championship.
With Monday's 6-4 victory in Game 4 of the NLCS, the Rockies capped an improbable monthlong run that saw them win 13 of their last 14 regular-season games, capture a one-game playoff to qualify for the postseason and then sweep all seven NL playoff games.
"This is what we grew up wanting to do," winning pitcher Matt Herges said. "Playing in the backyard with your brother, this is what you dream about. And now we're going to the World Series."
Herges, who pitched two scoreless innings Monday, could be a poster boy for the Rockies' rags-to-riches story. He has been cast off by six teams (including the Dodgers) in his major league career, and he was pitching in the minor leagues in July before the Rockies called him up.
"This is a special moment in the career of every man involved in this," said Colorado Manager Clint Hurdle, whose team stood fourth in the NL West with 13 games to play. "This may never happen again. This is one of those things where you get everybody back 10, 20 years down the road and you have a reunion."
It started with a 13-0 rout of the Florida Marlins on Sept. 16, followed by a doubleheader sweep of the Dodgers that was keyed by Todd Helton's two-out, two-run walk-off homer against Takashi Saito.
The Rockies have lost only once since, going 21-1, the best streak by an NL team since the New York Giants won 22 of 23 games in 1936.
"We were wanting to finish strong," infielder Jamey Carroll said. "And then we started to play the scenarios out. What if this and what if that? It finally came down to, 'Hey, we just have to win tonight.'
"You gain that momentum and you gain that confidence and you gain that excitement and it just steamrolled from there."
